Agricultural insurance pays 74.4 billion in seven years and needs to build a catastrophe risk dispersion mechanism.

Since the first pilot project in 2004, agricultural insurance has been developed for more than 10 years. During the seven years from 2007 to 2013, China's agricultural insurance provided a total of 4.07 trillion yuan in risk protection and paid 74.4 billion yuan in reparations to 147 million households affected by disasters, according to data released by the CIRC on August 28.

According to the reporter's understanding, at present, agricultural insurance has not yet established a "full chain" catastrophe risk dispersion mechanism, and the level of protection and coverage also need to be further improved. Under the strong demand of local governments for subsidies, how to establish a mature central and local responsibility-sharing mechanism has become an issue that must be solved.

Xiong Zhiguo, director of the Policy Research Office of the CIRC, believes that as an effective tool for the government to improve rural public services and strengthen social management, it is necessary to further deepen the reform of the agricultural insurance system. The reporter learned that in the next step, the relevant departments will also gradually expand the scope of risk protection to all direct physical and chemical costs, and carry out pilot projects of target price insurance for live pigs, vegetables, and other agricultural products.

Pilot pig target price insurance will be carried out.

On August 13, the State Council issued some opinions on speeding up the Development of Modern Insurance Service Industry (hereinafter referred to as "opinions"), defining the overall requirements, key tasks, policies and measures for the development of the insurance industry for a long period of time in the future. it is proposed that great efforts should be made to develop "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" insurance, in accordance with the principles that the central government supports ensuring volume and cost, local governments support ensuring characteristics and output, and conditional protection of price and income. We will actively develop agricultural insurance and expand the breadth and depth of insurance for agriculture, rural areas and farmers.

Statistics show that in 2013, the insured area of major crops in China exceeded 1 billion mu, the insured amount exceeded 1 trillion yuan, the number of insured households exceeded 200 million, and insurance reparations exceeded 20 billion yuan. The insurance coverage rates of rice, corn and wheat three major food rations crops reached 64.9%, 67.3% and 61.8%, respectively. On August 28, Chen Wenhui, vice chairman of the CIRC, said at an experience exchange meeting on insurance support for the development of animal husbandry that animal husbandry insurance has covered all provinces in the country. China has become the largest animal husbandry insurance market in the world.

At present, China has become the second largest agricultural insurance market in the world and the first in Asia, and is a "big country" of agricultural insurance. However, in accordance with the requirements of the "opinion", it is still necessary to achieve the transformation into an insurance "power" by 2020.

In evaluating the agricultural insurance system, Xiong Zhiguo said that agricultural insurance is the stabilizer and booster of agricultural production. At present, the grass-roots service network of agricultural insurance has covered 48% of the administrative villages across the country. Agricultural insurance with local characteristics and innovative products such as price insurance and index insurance continue to emerge, deepening the cooperation between agricultural insurance and rural credit, and improving the scientific and technological level of agricultural insurance.

From 2007 to 2013, China's agricultural insurance provided a total of 4.07 trillion yuan in risk protection and paid 74.4 billion yuan in reparations to 147 million affected farmers, according to data released by the CIRC on August 28th. At present, agricultural insurance covers nearly 100 crop varieties.

The reporter learned that in the next step, the relevant departments will gradually expand the scope of risk protection to cover all direct materialized costs, and carry out pilot projects of target price insurance for live pigs and vegetables, so as to solve the contradiction that "low prices hurt farmers and high prices hurt people".

A catastrophe risk dispersion mechanism needs to be established.

Since the pilot project of agricultural insurance has been carried out for 11 years, the construction and reconstruction of the system has been the theme of development.

Xiong Zhiguo believes that due to the late start and weak foundation of agricultural insurance in China, at the same time of rapid development, there are also some problems, such as the weak agricultural basic information management system, the degree of protection and service capacity can not meet the diversified risk needs of farmers, and the catastrophe risk dispersion mechanism is not perfect.

Feng Yonghui, chief analyst at Souzhu, told reporters, "Agriculture is greatly affected by natural disasters, but the occurrence of natural disasters is a small probability event, which requires some financial instruments to reduce market risks. and increasing the coverage of agricultural insurance to agricultural products is also an important part of the Central Committee's No. 1 document this year."

The No. 1 document of the Central Committee in 2014 pointed out that the proportion of premium subsidies provided by the central and provincial governments to insurance for major grain crops should be increased, and premium subsidies at the county level in major grain-producing counties should be gradually reduced or abolished. We will continue to improve the coverage and risk protection level of insurance for the three major grain varieties, namely, rice, wheat and corn.

Data show that at present, the number of subsidized varieties of agricultural insurance has expanded from 5 in the initial planting industry to 15 in three categories: planting, breeding and forestry, and the subsidy area has steadily expanded from six provinces to the whole country. At the same time, the proportion of subsidies is also gradually increasing. At present, the proportion of total premium subsidies at all levels of finance is 75% to 80% on average. In 2013, the central government allocated 12.688 billion yuan for premium subsidies, six times that of 2007, with an average annual growth rate of 34 percent, and support continued to increase.

In fact, how to pay the insured farmers smoothly after the catastrophe, how to establish responsibility sharing between the local and the central government, and the division of the financial commitment of agricultural insurance premium subsidies at all levels have always been the issues that the agricultural insurance system has been trying to straighten out in the reform.

"at present, the actual guarantee level of agricultural insurance is actually relatively low. for example, the insurance level of the three major grain crops is about 300 yuan per mu, but in fact the average cost is more than 400 yuan. in addition, the insurance rate of grain crops is about 50%. The average insurance rate of the three major grain crops is 65%, which still has a lot of room for improvement compared with developed countries." Feng Yonghui told the Daily Business News, "however, with the improvement of the level of protection and the insurance rate, the amount of premium subsidies will increase, so some local governments, out of financial considerations, it is difficult for them to improve the level of protection and the insurance rate, which forms a contradiction."

On the other hand, it is necessary to establish a "full chain" agricultural catastrophe risk dispersion mechanism. A sound agricultural insurance catastrophe risk dispersion mechanism generally includes direct insurance market, reinsurance market, local and central levels, in order to effectively disperse agricultural catastrophe risk.

According to the reporter's understanding, at present, the catastrophe risk dispersion mechanism at the local and central levels has not been fully established.